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Ethereum is a currency and enforcement system built for computers. Initially, ambiguity isn't a feature because it's meant for contracts and things which are me

by ewzimm 11y ago

Ethereum is a currency and enforcement system built for computers. Initially, ambiguity isn't a feature because it's meant for contracts and things which are meant to be precise. Room for ambiguity in ethereum can be added later, once computers are intelligent enough to negotiate ambiguity. The main feature of this system is removing the need for enforcement. Think about how much goes into maintaining police, bounty hunters, debt collection services, reposession services, prisons. In many people's opinions, if enforcing a contract is possible through software rather than physical force, software is always preferable. It brings its own issues of course and isn't instantly perfect, but the possibility of a world with much less need for violence to enforce the law is worth pursuing. The biggest advantage of this is that it can be completely automated. Corporations can be programmed to run themselves and negotiate enforcable contracts with each other without any human intervention. You could have a personal digital assistant which interacts with other digital assistants to manage your finances and investments, and everything can be enforced by software. As long as enough people are running free software, everyone can share mutually beneficial enhancements to the algorithms which govern their behavior. You might not want this kind of thing today instead of a trained financial advisor, but 30 years from now, it's likely that software will be better able to make financial decisions than any unaugmented human. Even more important would be movement of commodities around the world between people who need them. Instead of relying on profit-motivated markets to distribute goods, we could have optimal algorithms for moving resources where they're most needed, and enforcement of these agreements will not depend on the strength of a nation's military or economic power but rather smart contracts which are perfectly enforcable whether they belong to a first or third-world nation. None of this comes free, and there are real challenges to overcome. People will try to exploit them for personal profit. Software will have bugs and make bad decisions. Those are some of the growing pains we'll need to work through to get to a more fair, less violent world.

mempko 11y ago
You misunderstand why contract enforcement leads to violence. In the real world, contracts among equals are always fungable and rarely enforced with violence. It is different when the contracts are between powerful and the not so powerful. Violence propagates down. Ethereum, by automating contract enforcement is going to end up being a tool for the powerful against the weak. A tool which brings the cost of lowering contract enforcement will lead to powerful organizations using Contracts more often against the weak.
- ewzimm 11y ago
  You're right in general, but if two groups use a common software platform and write the rules of the contract into it, there's less need to build up an enforcement regime. I'm not sure exactly how you're interpreting contract enforcement leading to violence, so I'll try to explain a little more. Two people make a financial agreement, hire lawyers, and depend on a powerful police force and and penal system to enforce the terms of their contract. This increases the need for armed police, prisons, etc. As more people and institutions are given the right to enact violence to enforce these contracts, people become more desensitized to violence and arrest and more opportunities for abuse present themselves. Abstracting this enforcement into software also distances the enforcement from the culture and removes some of the negative psychological effects on people of carrying out that enforcement. That's on the smaller scale. On the larger scale, nations feel pressure into increasingly more arms races to keep themselves on an even level. Abstracting enforcement of agreements into software can have the same effect as the introduction of diplomacy into international trade. While it didn't eliminate war, it offered an alternative to straight-out aggression between tribes. Groups that used to stay to themselves and interact with each other only on disputed borders were able to cooperate on a much higher level by establishing representatives inside each others borders. A smart contract system is a neutral, diplomatic ground for the Internet. Today, the Internet resembles in many ways the world before diplomacy. There is a persistent, escalating cyber-war between nations. People can move in between nations, but there's no real neutral territory that every nation would consider fair. By having a mutually-agreed and verifiably trustworthy software platform to enact contracts, there can be opportunities for new types of deals that are more mutually beneficial. Will this suddenly eliminate war and hostility? Of course not. Neither did diplomacy. But almost nobody thinks we should go back to a world without any diplomacy, and once we have neutral and fair systems to conduct electronic business, few will want to give it up.
  - mempko 11y ago
    Contracts that are mutually beneficial typically don't need to be enforced because they are not often broken. People who consider themselves equals give each other slack in contracts. The only use case this software fits with is is handling contracts where one party does not trust the other. Typically the more powerful party is at an advantage. There are two scenarios I see. This software is useful to powerful groups to make contract enforcement cheaper in which case they will essentially force the weaker party into compliance. Or this gives the weaker party an advantage, in which case this software never takes off. Because let's face it, I would never use this with people I like.

by ewzimm 11y ago

mempko 11y ago

You misunderstand why contract enforcement leads to violence. In the real world, contracts among equals are always fungable and rarely enforced with violence. It is different when the contracts are between powerful and the not so powerful. Violence propagates down. Ethereum, by automating contract enforcement is going to end up being a tool for the powerful against the weak. A tool which brings the cost of lowering contract enforcement will lead to powerful organizations using Contracts more often against the weak.

ewzimm 11y ago
You're right in general, but if two groups use a common software platform and write the rules of the contract into it, there's less need to build up an enforcement regime. I'm not sure exactly how you're interpreting contract enforcement leading to violence, so I'll try to explain a little more. Two people make a financial agreement, hire lawyers, and depend on a powerful police force and and penal system to enforce the terms of their contract. This increases the need for armed police, prisons, etc. As more people and institutions are given the right to enact violence to enforce these contracts, people become more desensitized to violence and arrest and more opportunities for abuse present themselves. Abstracting this enforcement into software also distances the enforcement from the culture and removes some of the negative psychological effects on people of carrying out that enforcement. That's on the smaller scale. On the larger scale, nations feel pressure into increasingly more arms races to keep themselves on an even level. Abstracting enforcement of agreements into software can have the same effect as the introduction of diplomacy into international trade. While it didn't eliminate war, it offered an alternative to straight-out aggression between tribes. Groups that used to stay to themselves and interact with each other only on disputed borders were able to cooperate on a much higher level by establishing representatives inside each others borders. A smart contract system is a neutral, diplomatic ground for the Internet. Today, the Internet resembles in many ways the world before diplomacy. There is a persistent, escalating cyber-war between nations. People can move in between nations, but there's no real neutral territory that every nation would consider fair. By having a mutually-agreed and verifiably trustworthy software platform to enact contracts, there can be opportunities for new types of deals that are more mutually beneficial. Will this suddenly eliminate war and hostility? Of course not. Neither did diplomacy. But almost nobody thinks we should go back to a world without any diplomacy, and once we have neutral and fair systems to conduct electronic business, few will want to give it up.
- mempko 11y ago
  Contracts that are mutually beneficial typically don't need to be enforced because they are not often broken. People who consider themselves equals give each other slack in contracts. The only use case this software fits with is is handling contracts where one party does not trust the other. Typically the more powerful party is at an advantage. There are two scenarios I see. This software is useful to powerful groups to make contract enforcement cheaper in which case they will essentially force the weaker party into compliance. Or this gives the weaker party an advantage, in which case this software never takes off. Because let's face it, I would never use this with people I like.